Graham, president of ADG Group Inc., a human resources and
recruiting company, needed three virtual workers for her expanding
business. Realizing her own circle of friends wouldn't suffice
in finding qualified candidates, Graham ran a free "help
wanted" ad on Headhunter.net (http://www.headhunter.net).

Then the replies started flooding in. Within a week, she had 57
responses. Within two weeks, 118 were in her in-box. Within three
weeks, Graham had three virtual employees. What could have cost 10
percent of the combined annual salaries for a traditional
headhunter cost Graham absolutely nothing. "I've never
paid for help-wanted advertising," she boasts.

Need to staff up quickly--and inexpensively? Then head
online.

Whereas newspaper classified ads can be costly and inefficient,
and word-of-mouth limits a search to your circle of friends, online
hiring can accomplish the two basic goals of staffing--posting jobs
and locating quality resumes--more quickly and cheaply than
traditional want ads. Here's a quick how-to:

Visit sites and discussion lists related to your industry. Most
welcome chats between employers and candidates, says Mark Mehler, a
veteran recruiter and co-author of CareerXroads 2000 (Jist Works),
a paperback directory of 500 job, resume and career management
sites on the Web (www.careerxroads.com).

Define what skills the specific job entails. If you wait until
you've found a candidate, you may end up creating a job
according to their skills rather than your needs.

Once you're ready to post, ask for a free trial job posting
(posting resumes is free on most services; this is how Graham found
her three employees). Paid employment listings can range from $20
to $225 a month.

Learn to quickly and efficiently ferret through all the resumes
you'll undoubtedly receive. Headhunter.net claims 120,000 users
daily. Look for the specific skills you need from your new hire,
years of experience, writing and organizational style, etc. You can
learn a lot from a resume.

If you go the paid-listing path, find high-traffic sites using
automated agents to steer your job posting to the best candidates.
Ask how long and where the job will be posted, how much text is
allowed and whether responses will come directly to you or via the
site. Read other ads to gauge the style, and expect to pay for
prominence in the listing pool. Also, ask for and contact both
applicant and employer references who've used the site.

Graham learned quickly how to perform an online search. She
wrote out the questions she would ask candidates. Once she
shortened the list, she called them to chat further. When her
choices were narrowed down to a handful of people, she logged on to
NetMeeting--or hit the local Starbuck's--to get in a little
face-time via a virtual conference with the candidate.
"I've taken the virtual office and hiring," she says,
"to the next level."